wdef - Slashdot User

Submission + - UK to switch off £235m child database (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by wdef on Friday August 06, 2010 @06:43AM

wdef writes: The UK's controversial ContactPoint database is actually being switched off! It's rare that we hear anything this sensible from government about an expensive, privacy-destroying, 'think of the children' solution: (quote)The government argued the system was disproportionate to the problem, so is looking at developing other solutions.(unquote). Perhaps the UK coalition government really is winding back Big Brother, as they had promised to do? Does seem unlikely.

Submission + - Russian politician 'abducted by aliens' (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by wdef on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @04:11PM

wdef writes: The BBC reports that a Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalymkia, made his claim in a television interview. Mr Ilyumzhinov said in an interview on primetime television that he had been taken on board an alien spaceship which had come to planet Earth to take samples — and claims to have several witnesses. He has been president of Kalmykia, a small Buddhist region of Russia which lies on the shores of the Caspian Sea, for 17 years. As president of the World Chess Federation, he has spent tens of millions of dollars turning the impoverished republic into a mecca for chess players — building an entire village to host international tournaments. MP Andre Lebedev is not just asking whether Mr Ilyumzhinov is fit to govern. He is also concerned that, if he was abducted, he may have revealed details about his job and state secrets.

Submission + - Movie made by chimpanzees to be broadcast on tv (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by wdef on Monday January 25, 2010 @12:22PM

wdef writes: "The world's first film shot entirely by chimpanzees is to be broadcast by the BBC as part of a natural history documentary. The apes created the movie using a specially designed chimp-proof camera given to them by primatologists. The film-making exercise is part of a scientific study into how chimpanzees perceive the world and each other".

Submission + - Games 'permit' virtual war crimes (bbc.co.uk) 2

Submitted by wdef on Monday November 23, 2009 @08:28PM

wdef writes: Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts. Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime. The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings. It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.

Submission + - litl webbook cuter than cute (litl.com)

Submitted by wdef on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @11:49AM

wdef writes: After some advance leaks in various places, the linux-based litl webbook http://litl.com/ (yes, all lower case) with the baby blue button appears to have launched this morning, east coast US time. Atom powered and with what is said to be a unique web-oriented interface built around Clutter on top of an Ubuntu UME variant, the litl webbook reverses the trend towards WinXP or predictable Xandros or Ubuntu interfaces on netbooks. Litl, a Boston-based startup, appears to have snapped up a few of the most eminent programmers in the linux desktop community, such as Havoc Pennington, formerly one of the chief architects of Gnome, and some respected former Nokia and OLPC engineers. With industrial design by Fuseproject this is a cute looking product. It is said there are a few hungover coders in litl's Backbay area offices this morning after last night's launch party.

Submission + - NASA images show Jupiter apparently hit by object (google.com)

Submitted by

wdef

on Monday July 20, 2009 @11:19PM

wdef writes: "Astronomers say Jupiter has apparently been struck by an object, possibly a comet. Images taken by NASA early Monday show a scar in the atmosphere near the south pole of the gas giant."

Submission + - What is that script holding up Slashdot pages?

Submitted by

wdef

on Friday January 30, 2009 @02:18PM

wdef writes: "What is that god-awful script that holds up the loading of Slashdot pages every single time? Why does it exist? Why do I put up with it? I don't for a minute expect this to make it onto Slashdot, but I can't see any other obvious feedback mechanism."

Submission + - Police 'encouraged' to hack into citizens PCs (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

wdef

on Monday January 05, 2009 @07:46PM

wdef writes: "
The UK Home Office has signed up to an EU strategy against cybercrime that "encourages" police across Europe to remotely access personal computers.The plan has sparked fears that the government is looking to increase police powers to hack into people's computers without a court warrant. UK police already do a "small number" of such operations under existing law.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7812353.stm"

Submission + - Here we are aliens, come and eat us (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

wdef

on Tuesday October 14, 2008 @07:37AM

wdef writes: "Messages have been transmitted to the planet Gliese 581C, 120 trillion miles from earth, in the hope they will reach intelligent alien life. Some 501 photos, drawings and text messages were transmitted on Thursday by a giant radio-telescope in Ukraine normally used to track asteroids. Any reply to the messages — collated through a competition by the social networking website Bebo — would not reach Earth for 40 years. Topics submitted ranged from the environment, politics and world peace to family relationships and the sender's first kiss.

What, no Star Trek episodes? No space porn? These aliens will be dying for an ad break. On a more serious note, some well-known scientists have been opposed to mindlessly blasting narrow-beamed messages at feasible ET locations, for the simple reason that we may be relatively primitive — our own colonial history does not bode well for such encounters. And we are an excellent protein source, as Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and 1950s Twilight Zone episodes have so wisely reminded us."

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